Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 15

BUILDING AND KEEPING HOUSE IN 19TH-CENTURY ICELAND.
DOMESTIC IMPROVEMENTS AT HORNBREKKA, SKAGAFJÖRÐUR
studied, most notably by Hörður
Ágústsson (1987). This work focused on
changes in the form of the farmhouse and
its architectural properties rather than its
relationship with its inhabitants. Building
and inhabiting are, however, intimately
related and it is impossible to discuss one
without the other; activities within the
house during its habitation are ultimately
what create its form. However, we wish to
make a distinction between interpretations
that take the form of a building as a
starting point to interpret behaviours
within it and those which look at the
process of building-and-inhabiting as one
and the same. Archaeological
investigations are particularly well placed
to discuss such an entangled process as the
episodes of routine upkeep and
refurbishments, such as the scattering of
ash on the floor, and the sistering up of
walls (where a new wall is built up against
an earlier wall face), leave a clear
archaeological trace. Such actives
combined with an analysis of material
culture assemblages associated with the
building (further discussed in the next
section) create a nuanced picture of
‘peopled’ and embodied life within the
farmhouse, which can inform discussions
on Icelandic turfhouse architecture.
We would, furthermore, suggest, that
an analytical distinction between building
and inhabiting has its roots in the discourse
of the modemization of ‘vemacular’
architecture, which emphasised a Togical’
way to build to a design thus creating a
house that could be considered fmished at
a given moment in time. About half a
century earlier than the date of the earliest
excavated phase at Hombrekka, in 1790,
the building practices of Icelandic farmers
were criticised by Guðlaugur Sveinsson,
who promoted a change ffom more ad hoc
building and mending practices to building
a whole new house with advice ffom
skilled builders [byggingaforsmiðir (lit.
building foresmiths)] and with the aid of
strings and pegs that should be laid out on
the ground following a preconceived plan
- a design. He emphasised the importance
of starting with a flat, compact ground
surface, that foundations should be dug,
and that all older building materials should
be removed ffom the site, rather than being
built on top of or next to them. Sveinsson’s
article can be marked as being one of the
first instructions on the modernization of
houses in Iceland. Its recommendation on
following advice from professional
builders, using strings and pegs, following
clear designs for simple intemal divisions
and symmetry, sought to bring the
Icelandic vemacular building style in line
with developments in Europe.
Sveinsson’s article signalled an
important change in the way buildings
were to be constmcted and lived in.
Sveinsson criticised various aspects of turf
houses, which can be interpreted as
resulting from the way they were
constantly being built and rebuilt: the
different orientations of rooms within the
same building complex, which lead to
asymmetrical fagades, and the
accumulation of old building material
around houses, as single rooms were
demolished or refurbished. According to
Sveinsson it was common practice for
mins of previous rooms or buildings not to
be flattened or removed before a new one
was built, but rather to be used to form or
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